Riot Most Uncouth (14 page)

“How could a sworn confession be unreliable? How could injustice be perpetrated in the name of the Lord? He would not allow such a thing. God is justice, and there is no justice but God's.”

“A man in torment will say whatever is necessary to be granted respite, even the respite of death.”

Knifing tapped his soiled boot against the wall of the alleyway, trying to shake the blood off it. “Your supposition is that a man exposed to the mild discomfort associated with traditional inquisitive methods is likely to admit to a crime of which he is innocent, with full knowledge that such an admission will result in his own execution?”

Traditional inquisitive methods included sleep deprivation, beatings, flaying and scourging of the skin, and chaining accused individuals in painful positions for hours, or even for days. “I'd take issue with your assumption that the discomfort caused by torture is mild,” I said.

Knifing spat upon the ground, and his thick, yellow-gray wad of phlegm landed with a little splash in the wide, deep pool of blood surrounding Pendleton's corpse. “It is the amount of discomfort that learned and moral members of the clergy believed was appropriate to apply in pursuit of the truth,” he said. “By suggesting differently, you are putting your assessment of their methods ahead of their own, though you are a child and know nothing of God or of justice or of morality.”

I started to say something, but he wasn't really looking for a conversation, and he raised his voice and talked over me.

“We've replaced sanctified truth with the justice of man, and look at where it has gotten us. We stand in a dirty alley, speculating upon events that may have occurred, using methods adapted from the hunting tactics of savage American Indians and the heathen tribesmen of Africa. Do you think we can fashion from these crude materials a better truth than God's? Why disdain a clergymen's words while credulously accepting extrapolations drawn by a secular shaman about the direction of a spray of blood or the size and depth of a footprint? Why distrust a confession yet uncritically accept an ex-thief's divinations about a bit of discarded pipe-ash?”

“If you've such contempt for your employment, why do you continue in it?”

“I serve at His Majesty's direction. England has spent years at war, and London is rife with lawlessness. The populace demands safety, and perhaps His Majesty hopes a few high-profile investigators employing fashionable methods can forestall the need for the Crown to make a more comprehensive investment in stopping crime. If His Majesty says there must be scientific inquiry into a few murders, then so there will be. Indeed, because it is my duty to serve the King, I have become the foremost practitioner of this so-called science. I can read a murder scene as well as any Comanche can read a buffalo trail. But the alleged quality of my application of these methods is aided in no small amount by my lack of reverence toward them. I'm not here engaged in a search for anything like the truth. I'm performing a ritual; I'm here as a priest of man's godless justice, though I fear this ridiculous blasphemy might be the seed of England's downfall.”

“I hardly see the nation's ruin in the science of detection,” I said. “I am, indeed, baffled at how the two things could be related.”

His brows pulled together and his face became a collection of shadowy triangles. “I suspect you spend a lot of time being baffled, Lord Byron. You certainly seem to spend a lot of time drunk.”

I couldn't help noticing that he parried my rhetorical jabs with the same sort of bored insouciance that I'd employed in insulting Fielding Dingle. Everything about Archibald Knifing was scary, but the scariest thing about him was how brilliant he was. I suspected, for the first time, that my assumption that I was the world's greatest criminal investigator might have been mistaken. I wondered if Knifing had ever written verse, and I rather hoped he had not. He'd probably have been spectacular at it.

I replied: “I am a poet, and I am thusly endowed, at least, with a finely honed sense of truth.”

“A finely honed sense of the truth?” His clenched features lifted and spread apart, and his lips peeled off his teeth. I was terrified that I was about to find out what it sounded like when he laughed, but he restrained himself.

“It is not a thing for your mockery, Sir Archie. It's the most sacred and exquisite tool in an artist's repertoire.”

He tucked his hands into his waistcoat pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels, stretching his legs as he did so. Finally, he spoke: “I just want to make sure I understand this,” he said. “Your finely honed sense of the truth is an exquisite tool?”

“I do not appreciate your tone,” I said.

He relinquished his self-control and cackled. The evil sound reverberated off the blood-spattered stone walls. “I must say, I am thoroughly enjoying your ridiculous presence. You add no small amount of levity to these grim and routine proceedings.”

“I spread joy wherever I go,” I said. Contrary to rumor, I am capable of embarrassment, and I was, then, embarrassed.

“Do you use the whole repertoire to spread the joy, or do you merely require the exquisite tool?”

“You're very funny yourself.”

“Perhaps, my dear Poet, you'd like to engage your tool upon the matter at hand. Do your finely honed senses lend you any insight into what has befallen our poor Professor Pendleton?”

He was baiting me, but I wanted very badly to humiliate him by demonstrating that my talents eclipsed his own, even in the narrow field of his supposed expertise. I scratched my chin and wobbled a little bit on my feet. “Well,” I said. “Professor Fat—er, Pendleton wouldn't have climbed over the gate. He probably couldn't have, for he was quite heavy. I'd assume the killer either possessed a key to the padlock, or he was strong and agile enough to carry his victim over seven feet of wrought iron.”

“My God, I must retract and apologize for all my previous mockery; your reasoning is wondrous to behold,” said Knifing. “We elderly fellows often forget that we have much to gain by availing ourselves of the cleverness of youths. Were it not for you, I might have overlooked the significance of the gate.”

I should have perceived his sarcasm; which would have been obvious to even the least savvy of observers. But I did not. It is possible, I will admit, that my perception was impeded by drink, for I was already about six fingers deep into a bottle. I was also considering whether Fielding Dingle could have heaved Pendleton over the gate. It seemed unlikely; Dingle didn't seem much of an athlete. Knifing couldn't have done it either, for the victim matched his weight, plus half of it again.

Sedgewyck, perhaps, could have managed it; the Dutchman was large, and such a feat was, perhaps, within his abilities. But the timing was also difficult to work out; he'd been at my party, and then he'd walked Olivia home. So when could he have committed this murder? And how could any of them have known Fat Cheeks? There was only one suspect in these killings who had feuded with the dead man: me.

What I said to Knifing was: “It's wise of you to acknowledge your deficiency.”

Knifing glanced downward, ashamed, and seemed to notice something on the ground.

“Have a look at this,” he said, pointing to one of the cobblestones. “See, there, how it's scuffed in the middle, how its coloration is dull, while the others around it are damp and shiny? Suppose I said that I could deduce from my scientific methods that this scuff mark was made by the boot of the perpetrator of this crime, and suppose I could tell you that based on the angle of the marking and my scientific knowledge of the force necessary to scuff such a stone, that the killer had a foot-length of roughly ten and one-half inches, a weight of at least two hundred and ten pounds, and was likely taller than six feet, but no taller than six feet and three inches.”

“Why, that's remarkable,” I said, mentally calculating Sedgewyck's height and weight. “I believe you've nearly solved the thing, for there could only be a handful of men in Cambridge matching that description.”

“Perhaps I could determine the guilty party by deduction and intuition,” Knifing agreed. “I could round those men up, interview them, and see who has reasons to want this man dead. I could examine their boots to see whose match the cobblestone. Indeed, that would be convenient, except that everything I just told you is utter fabrication.”

“Pardon?”

“Fabrication. Horseshit. I made it up.”

“You made it up?”

“Entirely.”

“But there really is a scuff.”

His good eye gave me a blank stare. His bad eye always looked blank. “So?”

“So what, then, does that scuff mean?”

He laughed again. “It means nothing at all. It was probably like that before the murder. And yet, you were ready to believe me, and ready to place criminal suspicion on a small group of men based upon that assessment. How is the employment of such easily manipulated scientific methods more reliable than a sworn confession by the accused? How can judges and jurors assess the veracity of statements by professed experts regarding these obscure forms of evidence?”

“Perhaps such observations are reliable if they are the legitimate deductions of qualified men acting in good faith,” I retorted.

“The legitimate deductions of good faith experts such as yourself?” Knifing asked.

“Precisely,” I said.

He smiled his thin gravedigger's smile. “Well, let's explore, then, your little theory about the gate, shall we?

“I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts.”

He seemed delighted as well. “Tell me what you smell in this alley.”

The air was heavy and stank of copper. “Blood,” I said. “And also, shit.”

“Yes, that happens when murderers kill by disemboweling. He must have slashed open the lower intestine whilst digging with his knife in Professor Pendleton's guts.”

I shuddered. “That is a fact I could have lived without knowing.”

Knifing puffed up his narrow chest and pointed an emphatic finger at me. “You came here of your own volition, without any prompting or invitation. You appeared unbidden as well at the scene of Felicity Whippleby's murder. If, as you contend, you have no connection to these killings, then you have no reason for involving yourself with me or my investigation. Your presence here is an unseemly expression of your curiosity, so if you cannot endure the unpleasantness, you are welcome to leave me alone.”

“I just don't see how the stink of Pendleton's blood and shit are at all relevant.”

“Blood and shit are not relevant,” Knifing said, making a steeple of his fingers and assuming a lector's pose. “The important fact here is that this alleyway smells like piss.”

“You mock me,” I said.

“Even a man of my assiduous discipline and impeccable manners could scarce resist such a ripe and easy target for ridicule, but on this matter I am utterly without pretense. The smell of urine, pungent though it may be, would not ordinarily be discernible over the stink of this corpse, or of all this blood, unless said urine was present in large quantities. Observe, also, the water stains upon the walls around this alley, suggesting that the buildings here are regularly leaked upon from waist-high spigots.”

“I still fail to see the importance of this.”

“Despite the benefit of your finely honed poet's sense, and despite the advantage of having twice as many eyes as I've got, your observational failure comes as no surprise to me. I have already learned that, though this establishment serves as many as twenty concurrent patrons on a busy night, it is equipped with only a single outhouse. It's evidently the custom among the bar's regulars to relieve themselves in this alleyway. That gate was not locked last night, nor was Pendleton carried over it. He most likely stepped out here, of his own volition, to see to his functions. The killer took that opportunity to empty out all the stuffing in the unfortunate gentleman's torso.”

I thought about that. Knifing continued:

“Now, there are only a few taverns in Cambridge, and you've been a local resident and a drunkard for quite some time; certainly for long enough to become familiar with this place and its accommodations. Therefore, you should have known, and probably did know, that this alley is left open as a public urinal.”

He was right. Only a few evenings earlier, my weak foot had rolled sidewise on one of the wet, slippery cobblestones in this very alley as I'd leaned against the wall. Staggering, I'd pissed all over the front of my trousers. How could I have believed the gate was locked? My mouth felt very dry, and I fumbled in my waistcoat for my flask. “I was not trying to mislead you,” I said.

“I don't believe you were. I simply think your faculties as an observer are substandard, your deductive capabilities are undeveloped, and your alleged gifts as a poet are of limited applicability to the task of hunting killers. Among criminal investigators, Lord Byron, you're the worst I've ever seen.”

I cast my eyes downward and noticed what looked like part of a sticky boot-print at the edge of the pool of blood.

“Well, here is a clue you missed, perhaps due to the disadvantage of having half as many eyes as me. Unlike your fake scuff mark, this may lead us to the killer.”

“No,” said Knifing. “The foot to match that print belongs to Fielding Dingle.”

I shuddered as if I'd been struck; Knifing had disarmed me of the last advantage I held over him. “Oh, so you know already, of Mr. Dingle's arrival?”

“Yes. And let me revise my earlier statement. Now that he's in Cambridge, you are only the second-worst investigator in town.”

Grasping for any form of solace, I decided this was a backhanded compliment. “Why is he here, anyway, if you're investigating the murders?” I asked.

Knifing shrugged. “The man who hired me mentioned no one else. I suppose he sent Dingle down so we could collaborate, or so we could each confirm the other's findings. Whatever the reason, it makes no difference. Dingle will second my conclusion. He has neither the professional credibility nor the intellectual capacity necessary to persuasively disagree with me.”